The Decontamination
by Dr Ingram
Summary: Music helps her reflect, helps her purify herself. Song fic


_A/N: Thank you to pucklove._

_This contains spoilers for Hunting and clearly House nor the lyrics are mine. I lack all talent for creations that fantastic._

**The Decontamination**

_  
I knew it would hurt you but not like this  
We all make a mess from time to time, dear  
But it'll take me a lifetime to get this cleared  
Somebody muttered something under their breath  
But I let on like I was a little deaf  
Nobody's perfect, that's what I say  
No one has hurt me so much you say  
I'm sorry_

Cameron had been padding around her apartment in bare feet moving from room to room trying to displace her restless energy ever since she had gotten in from work. Despite the side effects of her HIV cocktail she had a lot of built up nervous energy. Her mind felt cluttered with fears and emotions as if someone had taken her mental filing cabinet and dumped it on the floor. Frustrated, she stalked into her bedroom and changed into her shorts, tank top and tied her trainers painfully tight before harshly pulling her hair back and tying it into a strict, tight ponytail. She headed back into her living room and stood in front of her cd player and collection of cds. She knew exactly what it was she was looking for to help resort her emotions.

Everyone had a certain song or certain artist in which they identified with most. Her sister for example found comfort in Snow Patrol and particularly their song Chocolate which she also related to.

_What have I done it's too late for that  
What have I become truth is nothing yet  
A simple mistake starts the hardest time  
I promise I'll do anything you ask...this time_

For Cameron however her artist was the melancholy tones of Fiona Apple. She had always been a fan of her music but over the past year she had become to identify with her songs more and more. There always seemed to be a song that pinpointed a certain period in her life. She placed her Fiona Apple cds on random and turned off the lights. Her apartment was enveloped in darkness except for the beautifully haunting mix of the moonlight and street lamps that bled through the window as the music started.

_I was staring at the sky, just looking for a star  
To pray on, or wish on, or something like that  
I was having a sweet fix of a daydream of a boy  
Whose reality I knew, was a hopeless to be had  
But then the dove of hope began its downward slope  
And I believed for a moment that my chances  
Were approaching to be grabbed  
But as it came down near, so did a weary tear  
I thought it was a bird, but it was just a paper bag_

_  
Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, oh it kills  
'Cause I know I'm a mess he don't wanna clean up  
I got to fold 'cause these hands are too shaky to hold  
Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love  
_

Cameron turned and began her nightly run on her treadmill. She began to remember what she'd never been able to forget.

_I tell you how I feel  
But you don't care  
I say tell me the truth  
But you don't dare_

"_Everybody likes you."_

"_Do you? I have to know."_

"_No."_

_You say love is a hell  
You cannot bear  
And I say gimme mine  
Back and then go there  
For all I care_

"_Maybe I should just quit?"_

"_Maybe you should."_

Cameron pounded harder and harder on her treadmill as the song progressed. As she remembered quite possibly the most hurtful thing he had ever said to her.

_I have never been  
So insulted in all my life  
I could swallow the seas  
To wash down all this pride  
_

"_You live under the delusion that you can fix everything that isn't perfect. That's why you married a man who was dying of cancer. You don't love, you need. And now that your husband is dead, you're looking for your new charity case." _

"Fuck you." She whispered thickly. He didn't know her. He claimed he did, he claimed that he could label her but he didn't know her at all. She turned up the speed of the treadmill, she wanted to sweat out her emotions and to ache with a painful burning. To burn all her memories, all her emotions until they were nothing.

_I was staring out the window  
The whole time he was talking to me  
It was a filthy pane of glass  
I couldn't get a clear view _

As he went on and on  
It wasn't the outside world I could see  
Just the filthy pane that I was looking through

So I had to break the window  
It just had to be  
Better that I break the window  
Than him or her or me

"_I thought you were too screwed up to love anyone. I was wrong. You just couldn't love me."_

_I was never focused on just one thing  
My eyes got fixed when my mind got soft  
It may looked like I'm concentrated on a very clear view _

But I'm as good as asleep  
I bet you didn't know  
It takes a lot of it away if you do

"_It's good. I'm happy for you."_

She had to let him off the hook, she had to do the decent thing and claim she was happy for him because that's how she was brought up. Though, on the inside she wanted to scream at him. She wanted to hate him and she tried. But she just couldn't hate him the way he wanted her to. Despite the things he had done and said to her. She still couldn't hate. And she hated herself for that.

_I'm gonna make a mistake  
I'm gonna do it on purpose  
I'm gonna waste my time_

"_You should get changed, there's this new place on campus that." Cameron pushes him up against the wall and kisses him. Chase looks very confused. "Are you high?" _

_"Uh huh." She strips off Chase's jacket.  
_

"_I thought the lab disposed of the drugs." _

"Not all of it." They start stripping each other.

"Uhh, slow down... your pupils are dilated!

"Come on Chase, don't turn into a good guy on me now."

_'Cause I'm full as a tick  
And I'm scratching at the surface  
And what I find is mine_

_  
And when the day is done, and I look back  
And the fact is I had fun, fumbling around  
All the advice I shunned, and I ran  
Where they told me not to run_

"_It's a big mistake."_

"_Yeah, why would you want to be in a relationship with someone that's so obviously only going to lead to pain?"_

She smiled bitterly to herself as pain began to surge through her legs and up her body. Mistakes. They seemed to be the only consistent thing in her life. House, Chase, listening to a patient. Her biggest mistake though was never making the one mistake that would have made her happy. Joe.

She turned up the speed of the treadmill even more as her chest began to burn in protest. She didn't stop.

_One man, he disappoint me  
He give me the gouge and he take my glee  
Now every other man I see  
Remind me of the one man who disappoint me_

"_I was twenty-one and I watched my husband die."_

_Next one up, a contemptible snob  
He live to put things in their place  
He did a commendable job  
He put himself so low  
He can hardly even look me in the face  
_

"_I'm twice your age, I'm not great looking, I'm not charming, I'm not even nice. What I am is what you need. I'm damaged." _

_O, he made my blood just burn  
I flipped so far, I thought that I would not return_

Her body is aching, burning but not as much as her heart not as much as the hot tears that stream down her face. She didn't chastise herself for crying. She wanted to bleed herself of all the memories, of all the emotions. She needed to purify herself.

_I've been a bad bad girl  
I've been careless  
With a delicate man  
And it's a sad sad world  
When a girl will break a boy  
Just because she can_

"_There are only two ways I can deal with things. One is in my control and that's to leave. Goodbye House."  
_

_Let me know the way  
Before there's hell to pay  
Give me room to lay  
The law and let me go  
I've got to make a play  
To make my lover stay  
So what would an angel say  
The devil wants to know  
_

"_I'm over you. I've jumped on the bandwagon. I hate you, ok?"_

But he had never believed it.

"_Great. Let's treat her."_

He had mocked her. He always mocked her._  
_

_What I need  
Is a good defense  
'Cause I'm feelin'  
Like a criminal  
And I need  
To be redeemed  
To the one  
I've sinned against  
_

_Because he's all  
I ever knew of love_

Cameron felt dirty. As dirty as the song that was playing. She stopped and began to strip herself of her clothes as she made her way to the bathroom. Her muscles were burning and her breath was coming out in short painful stabs. The combination of moonlight and street lamps caste an eerie glow over her bare sweat soaked skin. She looked at herself briefly in the bathroom mirror as she roughly tore her hair out of its ponytail letting it fall in a solid mass around her shoulders.

She walked over to the shower and stepped in standing directly under the shower head as she turned it on. The warm water cascaded down her shoulder and back. As she tilted her head back the water began to flow down her soft neck and over her soft perked breasts. She smiled contently to herself as the torrent of water decontaminated her.

_Please comment_

_A/N: Lyrics in order of use._

_Snow Patrol: On/Off_

_Snow Patrol: Chocolate_

_Fiona Apple: Paper Bag_

_Fiona Apple: Sleep to Dream_

_Fiona Apple: Window_

_Fiona Apple: Mistake_

_Fiona Apple: Get Him Back_

_Fiona Apple: Criminal_


End file.
